'It's working!' Deer, bears and other critters like Utah's first wildlife bridge — and the state has video to prove it.

Elinor Aspegren, USA TODAY
Wed, November 25, 2020,

The first wildlife bridge in Utah is working as intended. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has proof.

A video shared by the department on Nov. 19 shows various animals — including deer, bears and bobcats — using the Parleys Canyon Wildlife Overpass, which spans Interstate 80 southeast of Salt Lake City.

"It's working!" the department captioned the video.

The $5 million project "has been successful at helping wildlife safely migrate over busy Interstate 80 and helping motorists be much safer as well," the DWR wrote.

The nearly 350-foot-long bridge, which opened in December 2018, is the first of its kind in the state, according to the Utah Department of Transportation. The bridge's construction came after 46 deer, 14 moose, and four elk were killed on that stretch of highway in 2016 and 2017 alone.

UDOT spokesman John Gleason told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2019 that although the organization prefers to analyze data over 3-5 years, early results of the wildlife crossing were “encouraging.”

“From what we can tell, the number of accidents there is down dramatically,” he said. “At least initially, it appears the investment in safety is paying off. And we expected it to take several years before the animals got used to using it, so this is great.”

A 2008 federal study “estimated one to two million collisions between cars and large animals every year in the United States.”

Wildlife overpasses and underpasses have had similar success in other states, and thus have been growing in popularity.

Colorado's only wildlife overpass has already proven to be a success. So have several in Montana.

And the world’s largest wildlife overpass is expected to open next year over California’s 101 Freeway, near the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The 165-foot-wide bridge will “span 210 feet over ten lanes of pavement” that is used by 300,00 vehicles a day, per the National Wildlife Federation.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deer, bears, bobcats, oh my! Watch animals cross Utah wildlife bridge.

Editorial: The voters have spoken on legalizing marijuana. Biden and Congress need to listen


The Times Editorial Board
Fri, November 27, 2020

Marijuana plants for sale at a California dispensary in 2009. (Los Angeles Times)

American voters may be sharply polarized over many political issues of the day, but they are increasingly unified on one policy: legalizing marijuana.

Just look at the results of November's election — every statewide measure to relax marijuana prohibition won. Arizona, Montana and New Jersey voted to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older. Medical marijuana was approved in Mississippi. South Dakota voters backed both recreational and medicinal use.

Now, 15 states — with one-third of the American population — have chosen to legalize adult use of marijuana. Thirty-six states, with nearly 70% of the population, have legalized medical marijuana. From deep red states to deep blue ones, there’s widespread support for ending cannabis prohibition.

Yet marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug, like heroin, meaning it has no medicinal value and is highly addictive. That classification is a relic of the war on drugs. And it creates a serious and illogical conflict that makes it harder to properly research, regulate and tax marijuana, even as the cannabis industry grows larger with each new legalization initiative. Clearly the incoming Biden administration and Congress need to modernize federal laws and policies to reflect the reality on the ground.

There’s been little progress at the federal level over the last four years. Despite several bipartisan bills to end or ease the conflict between state legalization and federal law, Congress has repeatedly failed to move legislation. President Trump didn’t help matters by picking two prohibition hard-liners — Jeff Sessions and then William Barr — to run the Justice Department.

Sessions rescinded the 2013 Justice Department memo that outlined the Obama administration's hands-off approach to states that had legalized marijuana. There was little practical effect from Sessions' move; the DOJ didn’t suddenly begin targeting state-compliant pot shops. But the lack of clear guidance from the federal government left businesses and states in legal limbo.

The most logical thing the federal government could do is change the law. There are several bills pending in Congress to eliminate the conflict.

One of the most promising, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, is expected to pass the House of Representatives with bipartisan support next month. The act would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, expunge prior federal marijuana convictions and impose a federal tax on sales of cannabis, with the money going to communities most affected by the war on drugs.

The House has repeatedly passed the SAFE Banking Act, which would prevent federal regulators from punishing financial institutions that provide services to marijuana businesses operating in compliance with state laws. Most cannabis businesses can't open bank accounts or accept credit card transactions because financial services companies refuse to serve them for fear of being penalized by federal regulators. As a result, marijuana transactions are typically made in cash, which is dangerous for employees and makes it harder to collect taxes.

If passed again next year, both of these bills would probably be signed into law; after all, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the vice president-elect, sponsored the decriminalization bill. The real hurdle would be a Republican-controlled Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been wary of marijuana legislation, and as long as he’s in charge, passing reform bills will be challenging. However, there’s still a lot the Biden administration can do without Congress' help.

To start, Joe Biden can nominate an attorney general who will restore the guidelines from the 2013 memo and prioritize going after drug cartels, interstate trafficking and illegal pot farms on public land — not targeting law-abiding growers and sellers in legalized states. He can also direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to discontinue its stringent enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which bars travelers from entering the country if they admit to working or investing in the marijuana industry or to simply having used marijuana. That’s a silly policy considering that Canada has legalized marijuana and Mexico is poised to do the same.

The Biden administration should also end long-standing barriers to cannabis research, which the Drug Enforcement Administration can do through the rule-making process. Because marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, the government imposes strict limits on access to cannabis. There’s just one facility in the country that has permission to grow cannabis for study. Universities and other research institutions, meanwhile, are wary of approving marijuana research for fear of losing federal funding. Those conditions make it hard to conduct the kind of in-depth research necessary to understand both the benefits and the dangers of marijuana use.

The voters have spoken again and again. They want to end the ruse of prohibition and move marijuana from the black market into a legal, regulated, taxed system. It’s about time federal leaders listen.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

 

Purdue guilty plea 'cuts head off' opioid serpent
Wed, November 25, 2020, 

A NY attorney says Purdue Pharma's guilty plea "is a very, very important step" in addressing the opioid crisis but will never bring back the people who died. Hunter Shkolnik said the plea has essentially "cut the head off" the opioid serpent. (Nov. 25)
Video Transcript

HUNTER SHKOLNIK: This is now the company being charged with the crime and pleading to the crime. And that affects its ability to do business, to get contracts, just to run [INAUDIBLE] as a pharmaceutical company in the future. A company doesn't go into jail, but it's going to cost them money, and it's going to cost them their ability to run their business the way they have over the years.

Purdue is a bad company. The Sacklers ran it in a bad way. They're out of the company, they'll never step foot back in Purdue. Purdue will continue operating, albeit at a smaller size than it was, and it will sell the drug that many people need, paying patients need, in a legal and proper way.

It also provides for the financial compensation, the peace that is needed to get the money back to the cities, the counties, and the states to pay for the cleanup, to clean up the mess that we're seeing in our communities. This is a very, very important step.

I think a lot of folks would like to have seen a Sackler standing up there raising their hands saying, I plead guilty. But that didn't happen. I mean, no one's going to bring back the the family members they lost. No one is going to cure an opioid addict because of a settlement. But what's important here is we really cut the head off of this serpent. It is never going to be able to do this again.

Op-Ed: Why America is still living with the damage done by the 'superpredator' lie

Kim Taylor-Thompson
Fri, November 27, 2020

Demonstrators in Cleveland protest the police killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, on Nov. 22, 2014. (Tony Dejak / Associated Press)

Twenty-five years ago, John DiIulio, a political science professor, created and disseminated one of the most dangerous and lethal lies in our history. He coined the term “superpredator,” depicting Black children as remorseless animals who would prey on victims.

Make no mistake, racism propelled the spread of this theory. DiIulio insisted that this younger, more dangerous breed of offender would soon target “upscale central-city districts, inner-ring suburbs, and even the rural heartland.” His warning was clear: White America was in danger. The response was swift and unrelenting. The media immediately exploited and sensationalized his claims.

Politicians from both parties joined to pass draconian crime bills. And the public eagerly consumed the story. The superpredator lie went viral, infecting every single institution that touches children — courts, schools, law enforcement. In the end, it robbed Black children of their youth and the protections of childhood.


But the superpredator prediction was fiction. The crime wave DiIulio predicted never materialized. Juvenile crime rates actually dropped between 1994 and 2000. Of course, that did not slow politicians who nimbly ignored that data and pushed “adult time for adult crime” legislation.

Even when DiIulio admitted being wrong about his predictions, his retraction could not dislodge this country’s already-formed assumptions that young Black males were coldblooded and dangerous. Today, virtually every state still permits middle schoolers to be prosecuted as adults, exposing them to adult punishment. The overwhelming majority of those kids are Black.

What made this superpredator story so easy to swallow — and so stubbornly intractable?

The answer is simple and damning. The superpredator myth glommed onto a deeper lie rooted in American soil and in the American psyche. A lie that insists that Black children do not deserve the care we reflexively offer white children. All that was needed was the barest of information, and our worst beliefs filled out the contours of the story.

Sadly, this lie is an American phenomenon with intergenerational effects. During slavery, white slavers separated children from their mothers because a child could garner a greater profit. This was not just profiteering. This was insisting that Black children were chattel, not human. During the Jim Crow era, white mobs lynched Black children if they dared to cross a racial boundary that white society invented and ruthlessly enforced. Again, the lesson: Black children weren’t like other children. They needed to “know their place” in the racial caste. The nation was primed to expect the disparate treatment of Black children as appropriate or deserved.

By the time the claim that Black children were predators came along, the false stories were so culturally embedded that the public accepted this newest lie without question. Dehumanizing Black children allowed Americans to withstand any tug of moral constraint as children as young as 9 were charged as adults in the criminal justice system.

Linking Black children to animal traits made them seem less human. Nazi Germany had depicted Jews as “vermin” or “rodents” to relieve the public of all feelings of sympathy or empathy. In the same way, dehumanizing language put Black children outside the boundaries of childhood and allowed this country to remain unbothered by the fact that judges were sentencing children to die in prison under sentences of life without parole.

Choosing who counts as a child is steeped in this country’s racism. When Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old, opened fire on a street in Kenosha, Wis., killing two protesters this summer, pundits and political operatives were quick to describe him as a “little boy out there trying to protect his community.” Even when he walked past police toting a semiautomatic rifle, police did not stop or question him. A Black 17-year-old armed with a semiautomatic would not have lived to tell the story.

But Rittenhouse was not perceived as dangerous. He was seen as a child. Contrast that with Tamir Rice. Cleveland Police Dfficer Timothy Loehmann sized up Tamir, a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun, in a split second. He saw the boy as dangerous and shot and killed him within two seconds of getting out of his patrol car. The inability to see Tamir as a child cost him his life.

It has been a generation since the superpredator myth entered public discourse and we are still living with its pernicious effects. The justice system needs to stop referring children into the adult criminal justice system so that Black children get the benefit of the doubt instinctively given to white children.

More broadly, any racial reckoning needs to confront and check the reflex that leads us to see Black children as expendable. Maybe then we can begin to undo the untold damage of the superpredator lie.

Kim Taylor-Thompson is a professor of law at NYU School of Law and chair of the board of the Equal Justice Initiative.


This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

For the first time, scientists detect the ghostly signal that reveals the engine of the universe

Tom Metcalfe
Wed, November 25, 2020



In research published Wednesday in the journal Nature, scientists reported that they’ve made the first detection of almost-ethereal particles called neutrinos that can be traced to carbon-nitrogen-oxygen fusion, known as the CNO cycle, inside the sun.

It’s a landmark finding that confirms theoretical predictions from the 1930s, and it’s being hailed as one of the greatest discoveries in physics of the new millenium.

“It’s really a breakthrough for solar and stellar physics,” said Gioacchino Ranucci of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), one of the researchers on the project since it began in 1990.

The scientists used the ultrasensitive Borexino detector at the INFN’s Gran Sasso particle physics laboratory in central Italy – the largest underground research center in the world, deep beneath the Apennine Mountains, about 65 miles northeast of Rome.

The detection caps off decades of study of the sun’s neutrinos by the Borexino project, and reveals for the first time the main nuclear reaction that most stars use to fuse hydrogen into helium.

Almost all stars, including our sun, give off huge amounts of energy by fusing hydrogen into helium – effectively a way of “burning” hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element and the main fuel source in the universe.

In the case of the sun, 99 percent of its energy comes from proton-proton fusion, which can create beryllium, lithium and boron before breaking them down into helium.

But many stars in the universe are much larger than our sun: the red-giant Betelgeuse, for instance, is about 20 times more massive and about 700 times as wide.

The two nylon vessels in the core of Borexino filled with water during the initial operation of the detector. (Borexino Collaboration)

Large stars are also much hotter, which means they are overwhelmingly powered by CNO fusion, which fuses hydrogen into helium by means of atomic nuclei transformed in an endless loop between carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

Scientists calculate that the CNO cycle is the primary type of fusion in the universe. But it’s hard to spot inside our relatively cool sun, where it accounts for only 1 percent of its energy.

The giant Borexino detector looks for neutrinos given off during nuclear fusion at the sun’s core.

Neutrinos barely interact with anything, and so they are ideal for studying distant nuclear reactions — but they are also extremely hard to detect.

Trillions of neutrinos from the sun pass through the Borexino detector every second, but it detects only dozens of them each day by looking for faint flashes of light as they decay in its dark 300-ton water tank.

Ranucci said the Borexino detector has spent decades measuring neutrinos from the sun's main proton-proton chain reaction, but detecting its CNO neutrinos has been very difficult – only about seven neutrinos with the tell-tale energy of the CNO cycle are spotted in a day.

The discovery required making the detector ever more sensitive over the last five years, he said, by shielding it from outside sources of radioactivity so that the inner chamber of the detector is the most radiation-free place on Earth.

The result is the only direct sign of CNO fusion ever seen anywhere: “This is the first evidence that the CNO cycle is at work in the sun and the stars,” Ranucci said.

Gabriel Orebi Gann, a particle physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, called the discovery "a major milestone."

“This discovery takes us a step closer to understanding the composition of the core of our sun, and the formation of heavy stars," she said.

Orebi Gann is the author of a scientific article in Nature about the new study, but she was not involved in the research.

Neutrinos are produced naturally in nuclear reactions and pass through most matter without effect, so they can be used to probe otherwise unreachable regions of the universe, she said.

Because of this, several neutrino detectors are watching in darkness for their fleeting presence around the world, including the IceCube observatory at the South Pole and the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan.

It’s theorized that neutrinos from the Big Bang could account for some of the universe’s mysterious “dark matter” – vast invisible halos around stars and galaxies that make up about a quarter of its mass.

Orebi Gann said an asymmetry between neutrinos and their antiparticles could also explain the apparent dearth of anti-matter in our universe and its dominance of normal matter – in other words, just why there is anything here at all, rather than absolutely nothing

'Betrayed' Black asylum seekers say Trump administration is ramping up deportations

by force and fraud


Molly O'Toole, Andrea Castillo
Fri, November 27, 2020, 

A Nov. 11 flight takes off from Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas carrying Cameroonian and other African deportees. (Angelica Andrade)

Owning a small business in Cameroon selling French products was enough to trap the young man between the English-speaking minority and French-speaking majority government in the warring West African nation.

In July 2019, he was kidnapped by armed rebels, who tortured him for months in the jungle, demanding $10,000 ransom from his family, he said. Then, shortly after they paid, government forces arrested and tortured him for another month — for “financing” the separatists.

But what shocked him most, he said, was that, after escaping through a dozen countries and claiming asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, American officials detained him for almost a year, then threatened and assaulted him and put him in solitary confinement before deporting him in late October back to Cameroon.


“At that point, it’s like the end of the world,” he said, requesting anonymity because he is in hiding. “It’s a death plane. Even if there was a means to make that plane crash that day, we would’ve done it.”

During President Trump’s last weeks in office, Black and African asylum seekers say, the administration is ramping up deportations using assault and coercion, forcing them back to countries where they face harm, according to interviews with the immigrants, lawyers, lawmakers, advocates and a review of legal complaints by The Times.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security headquarters did not respond to requests for comment.

The allegations have shed light on a group of immigrants who have been targeted both by the president's rhetoric and his policies to restrict asylum, but are often overlooked. Relative to Mexicans and Central Americans, asylum seekers from Africa and the Caribbean make up a small but fast-growing proportion of the more than 16,000 immigrants in detention today across the United States, particularly in the for-profit prison archipelago in the American South that has proliferated under Trump.

Despite Trump’s all-out assault on asylum, explicit bias against Black asylum seekers, and border closures under the pretext of the pandemic, some 20,000 Haitians and Africans have journeyed from South America, largely on foot, to claim protection at the U.S.-Mexico border during Trump’s time in office, according to Mexico’s migration statistics.

President-elect Joe Biden has said he would end the use of for-profit immigration detention, reverse many of Trump’s policies to restrict asylum, and reform the U.S. immigration system. But Trump has left his successor with decades-long private-prison contracts; more than 400 executive actions on immigration; a record immigration court backlog of more than 1.2 million cases; and record-high asylum denial rates, reaching around 70% last month.

Since last month, lawyers have filed multiple complaints with the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Inspector General’s Office documenting the cases of at least 14 Cameroonian asylum seekers at four detention facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi who were allegedly subjected to coercion and physical abuse by ICE to force their deportation. The complaints call for investigations and an immediate halt to the deportations, arguing that officials are violating U.S. and international law, including the Convention Against Torture and due process rights.

In that time, more than 100 asylum seekers also have reported ICE using or threatening force to put them on deportation flights, in particular to Haiti and West Africa, according to lawyers and calls received on a national immigration detention hotline run by nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants.

The Times has interviewed nine asylum seekers, most from Cameroon, as well as Haiti and Ethiopia, many of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. Five have been deported in the last month, and three remain detained after ICE attempted to remove them in recent weeks. One Cameroonian was released Monday after roughly 20 months in immigration detention.

They include teachers, law students, mothers, fathers, a 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, who have fled corrupt governments, political persecution, gang rape, torture by security forces, assassination attempts and arbitrary detention.

For many, deportation from the United States is a death sentence.

“I came to U.S. because I need to save my life because my life is in danger,” said A.K., a high school teacher who fled Ethiopia in 2017 after being jailed and beaten for supporting the political opposition party and student protests.

A.K. claimed asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on the California-Mexico border in 2018. But last month, while being held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility, after he refused to sign deportation papers, six ICE officers assaulted and forcibly fingerprinted him, he said, then sent him to the medical clinic.

His asylum case had been denied but was pending an appeal. Two days after the assault, he said, officers told him he’d be transferred. Instead, they took him to LAX and deported him to Ethiopia, where he was immediately rearrested and now awaits a court hearing.

“ICE is something like racist because they are doing excessive force,” A.K. said. “In freedom country I don’t expect these things.”

Asylum seekers like A.K. are well aware of Trump’s disparagement of Black immigrants. Many of them believe that ICE officials and detention guards share his prejudices.

As Trump leaves office, the “pattern and practice of physical and verbal coercion” by ICE officers and guards to try and force Black asylum seekers to sign deportation papers is worsening, according to the complaints filed to the Homeland Security's Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Inspector General's offices.

Beyond threats, the tactics include shackling the immigrants, stripping them naked, holding them down and choking them, resulting in injuries, according to the complaints. Officials often committed the assaults out of sight of facility cameras, or, in several instances, filmed the assaults themselves, the complaints state.

Immigration detention is civil, not criminal, and ICE has the discretion to release detainees at any time. Most of the asylum seekers have family in the United States, and all have exercised their right to seek protection under U.S. law — meaning that many are being detained for years despite having U.S. sponsors and not committed any crime.

Of the deportation flights to West Africa in October and November, at least a dozen on board had pending cases, according to lawyers.

In interviews with The Times, the asylum seekers said they sought protection in the United States because they believed it was the only place where they could be safe and free.

“We believe in freedom and in this country as a country that provides protection for people who are running for their lives, and instead upon arrival, for us to be imprisoned and caged?” said a Haitian mother detained with her husband and 2-year-old son at a Pennsylvania ICE facility.

Police officers in Haiti targeted her and her husband for their involvement with the political opposition, beating and sexually assaulting her while she was pregnant, according to sworn legal statements. She lost the baby before she fled.

Despite many countries shutting their borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE has recently increased the pace of deportations, including sending a flight to West Africa just days after the election. Last month, there were nearly 500 ICE Air Operations flights, a more than 10% increase since September, according to Witness at the Border. More than 1,300 Haitians were deported, said Guerline Jozef, president of the Haitian Bridge Alliance in California.

In recent years, Cameroonians have increasingly accounted for one of the largest groups of what U.S. officials term “extracontinental” migrants, amid the widening conflict in Cameroon.

K.S., a 34-year-old from Cameroon, said he fled because government officials asked him to work with them to capture Anglophone people. He refused; his wife and three children are from the English-speaking side.

He had been detained at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility east of San Diego for more than two years when the final appeal on his asylum claim was denied. It made him so depressed that he spent a week under medical observation.

He said the ICE deportation officer assigned to his case advised him to sign paperwork agreeing to be deported. The officer said that if the Cameroonian government didn't accept ICE’s request to take him back, as was likely, after 90 days he would be released to his U.S. sponsor.

On Oct. 6, after 97 days had passed, six guards stood by as K.S. was ordered to pack up his things to leave.

“I didn’t think about deportation,” he said. “It was the last thought on my mind. They lied to me.”

ICE officers put him on a flight to Louisiana that picked up other Cameroonian deportees and then dropped the group off at the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas. On Oct. 13, K.S. said, he was cuffed again and taken to the airport, where he boarded a flight with about 100 other African migrants.

He watched as ICE officers strapped in three men from their shoulders to their ankles to restrict their movement and covered their heads with bags. The officers then laid the men, immovable in the mats, across the plane rows.

Just as the flight was about to take off, K.S. and three other men were removed and taken back to Prairieland, without explanation.

Three weeks later, on Nov. 11, K.S. was back on a deportation flight with 27 other men. One, who was known to have heart problems, began crying that his chest was burning, K.S. said, an account confirmed to The Times by another passenger.

ICE ultimately removed the man and put him in an ambulance.

In contrast to Central Americans largely fleeing a lethal combination of gang violence, corruption, poverty and climate change, many Haitians and Africans have more traditional asylum claims that, at least in theory, better fit the categories outlined by an outdated U.S. asylum system largely conceived in the post-World War II era: persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or being part of a particular social group.

Yet Black and African asylum seekers are less likely than other immigrants to be released on parole or bond, or win their asylum cases, a racial disparity that has worsened under Trump, according to lawyers and government data.

From last September to May, comparing hundreds of release requests from detained Cubans, Venezuelans, Cameroonians and Eritreans, the non-Africans had grant rates roughly twice as high, said Mich Gonzalez, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Less than 4% of Cameroonian parole requests were granted.

ICE is also increasingly blanket-denying Black immigrants’ release for clearly bogus reasons, said Anne Rios, a supervising attorney in San Diego with the nonprofit Al Otro Lado.

For example, ICE rejected a request, saying an applicant’s identity hadn’t been established, when the agency had the applicant and his identification documents in its custody, according to parole applications and denials provided by Rios and reviewed by The Times.

U.S. officials have faced more impediments to deporting Haitian and African asylum seekers due to limited diplomatic relationships with their homelands and more complicated deportation logistics exacerbated by coronavirus closures abroad.

But that hasn’t stopped them. The Trump administration has at times put enforcement before its own stated foreign policy, contradicting the State Department and U.S. law barring officials from returning people to harm or death.

Take Cameroon. Last year, the U.S. pulled back some military assistance amid reports of atrocities committed by security forces trained and supplied by the U.S. military for counterterrorism. The State Department travel advisory for Cameroon warns of “crime," "kidnapping," "terrorism" and "armed conflict.”

Rather than obtaining a valid Cameroonian passport, ICE officials have issued Cameroonian deportees “laissez-passer” travel documents that are invalid, or even signed by individuals in the United States purporting to be Cameroonian officials, according to the October complaint.

The Cameroonian Embassy has told advocates they have not issued any such documents. But in September, ICE presented a “laissez-passer” to Pauline Binam, a Cameroonian woman whom the agency attempted to deport as she spoke out against a Georgia gynecologist who she said had removed her fallopian tube without her consent. Binam, the airlines, and ultimately the Cameroonian government rejected the document, issued by a minister in Houston claiming to be an honorary consul.

The U.S. State Department also recently put out a statement calling on the government of Haiti to bring “long overdue justice” to perpetrators of the worst massacre in more than a decade two years ago, when gangs with ties to powerful politicians tortured, raped and killed dozens.

In 2016, the police attack on the Haitian mother left her in a coma for eight days, according to an emergency motion to reopen her family’s case. She and her husband both had family in Haiti targeted and killed for their politics.

She later gave birth to her son in Chile in the street after hospitals turned the couple away because they are Black, lawyers say. Ultimately, the trio sought asylum in March near Tecate, east of San Diego. But U.S. immigration officials denied their claims based on a Trump administration policy that a federal judge ruled unlawful in June.

Bridget Cambria, one of the attorneys representing the Haitian mother and 63 others, including two dozen families at imminent risk of removal, said they appealed to the Circuit Court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, they got a temporary stay.

The Haitian woman said they had hoped to join family in Florida. Instead, her son is in detention, suffering from a virus that manifests in sores over his body and mouth.

“No child, no baby should be kept in a place like this,” she said.

Such a release is increasingly rare, but not impossible. Halley, the Cameroonian asylum seeker released Monday, had refused to sign deportation papers he called his “death warrant.” ICE pulled him off the November deportation flight, but then denied him parole a week ago. Now, he’s with family in Maryland.

"That day was another new birthday for me, I could not believe it," he said Wednesday.

Meanwhile in Cameroon, K.S. and many other U.S. deportees remain stuck, hopeless and effectively stateless.

“I’m ready to die now,” he said. “If they are going to take me, no problem. I am already dead.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Thai pro-democracy protesters warn of possible coup

TASSANEE VEJPONGSA
Fri, November 27, 2020, 

BANGKOK (AP) — Pro-democracy demonstrators in Thailand, undeterred by arrest warrants and the possibility of violent attacks, staged another rally on Friday, poking fun at their critics and warning of the possibility of a military coup.

The potential for violence was illustrated after their last rally on Wednesday, when in the hours after it ended, two men were reportedly shot and critically wounded. Although the incident remains murky and its connection to the rally unclear, it was a reminder that the student protesters are vulnerable, especially because of the passions they inspire among some of their opponents.

The protest movement’s core demands are for Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and his government to step down, the constitution to be amended to be more democratic, and the monarchy to be reformed to make it more accountable.

Their demand concerning the monarchy is the most controversial and earns them the most enemies. The royal institution by law and tradition is virtually untouchable, and regarded by many as the bedrock of national identity. The military has declared defense of the monarchy to be among its foremost duties.

The protest leaders believe that King Maha Vajiralongkorn holds more power than is appropriate under a constitutional monarchy, and have made that the centerpiece of their campaigning in recent weeks. Although any criticism of the monarchy used to be taboo, speeches at the rallies — as well as signs and chants __ include caustic words about the king and the palace.

In response, Thai authorities this past week escalated their legal battle against protest leaders, charging 12 of them with violating a harsh law against defaming the monarchy. The lese majeste law carries a penalty of three to 15 years' imprisonment, but has not been used for the past three years.

Historically, defending the monarchy has been abused for political reasons. It has also triggered violence, most notably in 1976, when it led to the killings of dozens of students at a university protest against the return from exile of an ousted military dictator. That event was the trigger for a coup, and since then Thailand has had successful coups in 1977, 1991, 2006 and 2014.

There is concern that if the government feels it cannot control the protests, which show little sign of abating, it may impose martial law or be ousted by the army in a coup.

Some speakers on Friday evening urged the crowd to take measures to resist any coup that might be launched.

Resisting any coup attempt was the nominal theme of the rally, which began in a festival-like atmosphere that has marked many of the protest events. Oversized inflatable yellow rubber ducks that became icons of the movement after they were used as shields against police water cannons were joined by balloons in the image of silvery space aliens. The balloons are displayed to mock accusations that foreigners — “aliens” — fund and direct the protest movement.

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Thailand Protests
A protester holds a balloon shaped like an alien - to mock accusations that foreigners fund and direct their movement - during a rally Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

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CORRECTION Thailand Protests
A crowd gathers during a rally Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

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Thailand Protests
Protesters flash three-finger protest gestures while holding balloons shaped like aliens - to mock accusations that foreigners fund and direct their movement - during a rally Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)



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APTOPIX Thailand Protests
Inflatable yellow ducks, which have become good-humored symbols of resistance during anti-government rallies, are lifted over a crowd of protesters Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

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CORRECTION Thailand Protests
CORRECTS PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME - A woman flashes a three-finger protest gesture while posing in front of mostly inflatable yellow ducks, which have become good-humored symbols of resistance during anti-government rallies, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

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Thailand Protests
Protesters flash LED lights from their mobile phones during a rally Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)



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APTOPIX Thailand Protests
CORRECTS PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME - A protester adorns his beard with a yellow duck, which has become a good-humored symbol of resistance during anti-government rallies, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/WasonWanichakorn)

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CORRECTION Thailand Protests
Two women flash three-finger protest gestures while wearing headbands adorned with yellow ducks, which have become a good-humored symbol of resistance during anti-government rallies, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

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CORRECTION Thailand Protests
CORRECTS PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME - A man holds up bubble blowers and merchandise designed as yellow ducks, which have become good-humored symbols of resistance during anti-government rallies, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)



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Thailand Protests
A crowd of protesters flash three-finger protest gestures during a rally Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

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Thailand Protests
Inflatable yellow ducks, which have become good-humored symbols of resistance during anti-government rallies, are lifted over a crowd of protesters Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

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Thailand Protests
Inflatable yellow ducks, which have become good-humored symbols of resistance during anti-government rallies, are lifted over a crowd of protesters Friday, Nov. 27, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Pro-democracy demonstrators are continuing their protests calling for the government to step down and reforms to the constitution and the monarchy, despite legal charges being filed against them and the possibility of violence from their opponents or a military crackdown. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Sri Lanka bans Tamil remembrance of war dead

Fri, November 27, 2020

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government petitioned the courts to have Tamil Tiger commemorations banned

Commemorations for Tamil Tiger rebels killed in Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war were banned on Friday after court petitions by the government of strongman President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Sri Lanka's 37-year conflict began in 1972 when Tamil Tigers waged a bloody war against government troops in a campaign for a separate homeland for their ethnic minority group.

Rajapaksa was defence chief when the Tigers were finally defeated in 2009 while his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president, winning them the adoration of many in the Sinhala majority population.

For years, Tamils were not allowed to commemorate their war dead, but a ban on "Heroes' Day" ceremonies at cemeteries was lifted after Mahinda was voted out of office in 2015.

The Rajapaksa brothers returned to power last year however when Gotabaya was elected president.

His government petitioned courts in the Tamil-majority north of Sri Lanka this week and obtained prohibition orders against the commemorations, the attorney general's office said.

The main Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), protested against the ban on Friday.

"Even in the remembrance of the dead there is discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka," TNA legislator Abraham Sumanthiran said on Twitter.

He said the majority Sinhalese governments had not barred the leftist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, from commemorating their mainly Sinhalese comrades killed in two failed insurrections in 1971 and in the late 1980s.

Police said they had already arrested four people "for posting Heroes' Day-related messages on social media".

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) declared in the late 1980s that November 27 would be their "Heroes' Day" in memory of self-styled Tiger Lieutenant Shankar, their first combatant killed by security forces in 1982.

Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist war cost the lives of more than 100,000 people, according to United Nations estimates.

The UN accused Sri Lankan forces of killing at least 40,000 Tamil civilians in its military campaign, an allegation denied by successive governments.

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Rights groups decry attacks on Pakistan's minority Ahmadis


MUNIR AHMED
Thu, November 26, 2020, 

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Three international human rights groups on Thursday denounced recent attacks on Pakistan's minority Ahmadi community and asked Islamabad to “urgently and impartially investigate a surge" in violence.

The joint appeal from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists came days after a sixteen-year-old Muslim youth opened fire on a group of Ahmadis gathering for worship at a home. The attack killed a doctor, Tahir Mehmood, and wounded three other Ahmadi men, including the doctor’s father.

Mehmood’s family have since gone into hiding for security reasons. The suspected attacker was taken into in police custody.

In Sunday's statement, the three rights groups called on Pakistan to “take appropriate legal action against those responsible for threats and violence against Ahmadis.”

Since July, five members of the Ahmadi community have been killed in separate attacks.

“There are few communities in Pakistan who have suffered as much as the Ahmadis,” said Omar Waraich, head of South Asia at Amnesty International. “The recent wave of killings tragically underscores not just the seriousness of the threats they face, but also the callous indifference of the authorities, who have failed to protect the community or punish the perpetrators."

Ian Seiderman, legal and policy director at the International Commission of Jurists, reminded Prime Minister Imran Khan's government of commitments made in the United Nations General Assembly to actively protect minorities' human rights.

Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, also called on Pakistan to take “immediate legal and policy measures to eliminate widespread and rampant discrimination and social exclusion" of Ahmadis.

The Ahmadi faith was established on the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whose followers believe he was a prophet.

Pakistan’s parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Since then, Ahmadis have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists in the Muslim-majority nation.

Earlier this month, gunmen shot and killed an 82-year-old Ahmadi man. In October, a Muslim professor shot and killed an Ahmadi professor a day after the two allegedly had a heated discussion over a religious matter.

Belarus' Lukashenko says he will leave his post after months of protests, state media reports

Saphora Smith and Tatyana Chistikova
Fri, November 27, 2020

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he would step down after a new constitution is adopted, the state-owned BelTA news agency cited him as saying on Friday.

"I am not going to shape the constitution to suit my needs," he is quoted as saying. "I am not going to be the president once the new constitution is in place."

Belarus has been rocked by months of anti-government protests ever since Lukashenko — often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator” — claimed victory in an Aug. 9 presidential election that his opponents say was rigged, a charge he denies.

It remained unclear whether Lukashenko's comments were sincere or whether he was just paying lip service to the prospect of him stepping aside. In any case, it is the first time he has publicly reflected on how the country will be governed when he is no longer president.

His comments on the constitution came as he was visiting a Minsk hospital on Friday. He appeared to suggest that the current constitution concentrates too much power in the hands of the president.

“We need to create a new constitution but it should benefit the country. I don't want the country to fall to ruin later on,” he said, according to the news agency.

Lukashenko has maintained his grasp on power in the former Soviet nation for the last 26 years and met the protests with a violent crackdown. Hundreds have been arrested and there have been allegations of torture from people held in custody.

This is his sixth term as president.

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The latest news comes after the European Union imposed sanctions earlier this month on Lukashenko and 14 other officials over their roles in the security crackdown launched during the protests.

Pictures from the streets of the Belarusian capital Minsk earlier this week showed people protesting against police violence, and brandishing the former white-red-white flag of Belarus that has become a symbol of protest in the country.

More than three months after an historic protest movement emerged across Belarus, people continue to take to the streets.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he would step down after a new constitution is adopted, the state-owned BelTA news agency cited him as saying on Friday.

"I am not going to shape the constitution to suit my needs," he is quoted as saying. "I am not going to be the president once the new constitution is in place."

Belarus has been rocked by months of anti-government protests ever since Lukashenko — often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator” — claimed victory in an Aug. 9 presidential election that his opponents say was rigged, a charge he denies.

It remained unclear whether Lukashenko's comments were sincere or whether he was just paying lip service to the prospect of him stepping aside. In any case, it is the first time he has publicly reflected on how the country will be governed when he is no longer president.

His comments on the constitution came as he was visiting a Minsk hospital on Friday. He appeared to suggest that the current constitution concentrates too much power in the hands of the president.

“We need to create a new constitution but it should benefit the country. I don't want the country to fall to ruin later on,” he said, according to the news agency.

Lukashenko has maintained his grasp on power in the former Soviet nation for the last 26 years and met the protests with a violent crackdown. Hundreds have been arrested and there have been allegations of torture from people held in custody.

This is his sixth term as president.

The latest news comes after the European Union imposed sanctions earlier this month on Lukashenko and 14 other officials over their roles in the security crackdown launched during the protests.

Pictures from the streets of the Belarusian capital Minsk earlier this week showed people protesting against police violence, and brandishing the former white-red-white flag of Belarus that has become a symbol of protest in the country.

More than three months after an historic protest movement emerged across Belarus, people continue to take to the streets.

This is a breaking story. Please check back for details.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.